676 

K5 

:opv 



JfaititQVp Of used in calling 

the assembly to order at the 
laying of the Corner-stone of 
the Memorial and Historical 
Building at Topeka, Kansas 
September 27, 1911, 10 a. m 


1. -New England White Pine. From the sea-chest of Cap¬ 
tain Robert Gray, who commanded the ship Columbia, the first 
American vessel to circumnavigate the globe. Capt. Gray sailed 
into the Columbia river on May 11, 1792, and named this great 
stream “ Columbia’s river,” on May 19th following. This act of 
discovery is the first link in the chain of title to all the possessions 
of the United States west of the Rocky Mountains. 

2. -Oregon Grape Wood. This is the State Flower of Oregon, 
chosen because of the beauty of its foliage rather than because of 
the beauty of its bloom. In all public functions where decorations 
are used the Oregon grape is foremost. The botanical name of this 
shrub is Berberis aquifolium, or Holly-leaved Barberry. It was so 
classified by an English botanist named Pursh, who secured the 
specimen from the Lewis and Clark party soon after its return 
to St. Louis in 1806, and he gave it the name “Oregon Grape,” 
about 1816. Upon the motion of George H. Himes, it was adopted 
as the State Flower of Oregon by the Oregon Horticultural Society 
on July 18, 1892, and confirmed by resolution of the Legislative 
Assembly of Oregon in its session of 1899, by the efforts of the 
State Federation of Woman’s Clubs of Oregon. 

3-Pine. From lumber sawed in the mill of Hugh Holcombe, 
near Le Roy, Bradford county, Pa., in 1798, used in a packing- 
case by his daughter, Mrs. Emiline Holcombe Himes, when she 
removed from Pennsylvania to Stark county, Ill., in 1846, and also 
in crossing the plains from Illinois to Oregon in 1853, beginning 
March 21st and ending October 21st. This lady was the mother 
of George H. Himes, Assistant Secretary of the Oregon Historical 
Society. 

4.-Red Cedar. From the top of Wahchung Mountain, near 
Milburn, N. J., where a company of Jersey militia was stationed 
in 1778, whose duty was, by prearranged signals, to keep General 



a. 









Washington, at Morristown, and General Greene, at Springfield, 
apprised of the movements of the British fleet under Admiral 
Howe and the British Army under Sir Henry Clinton. 

5. -Service-berry. From the site of Fort Clatsop, established 
by Lewis and Clark early in December, 1805, and abandoned by 
them March 23, 1806. This emphasizes the second point or link 
in the title of the United States to its territory on the Pacific Slope. 

6. -Spruce. From the site of Astoria. This directs attention 
to the third link in American title to Pacific Coast territory—that 
of occupation—first by the Pacific Fur Company, an American 
corporation founded by John Jacob Astor in 1810, and second, by 
the advent of American trappers, missionaries and home-builders. 

7. -Manzanita. From the banks of Rich Gulch, the site of 
the first permanent mining camp in Oregon, established near 
Jacksonville, Jackson county, in January, 1851. 

8. -Maine Spruce. From the sill of the first frame building 
in Portland, Oregon, the whole structure being shipped from 
Maine by Capt. Nathaniel Crosby, in 1847. 

9. -Pine. Taken from the Blue Mountains, Oregon, by Dr. 
Marcus Whitman, in the winter of 1836-37, and was part of a log 
used in the construction of the Whitman Mission buildings, lo¬ 
cated six miles west of the present city of Walla Walla, Washing¬ 
ton. On November 29-30,1847, Dr. Whitman, his wife and twelve 
other whites were killed by the Indians, and fifty-three women and 
children taken prisoners and kept for several weeks. These 
prisoners were rescued by Peter Skene Ogden, Chief Factor of the 
Hudson’s Bay Company, and taken to Oregon City early in 1848. 
At the time of the massacre the buildings were destroyed by fire, 
except some portions of logs which were partially buried, from one 
of which this piece is taken. 

10-White Oak. From the site of Oregon City, the first in¬ 
corporated city west of the Rocky Mountains—December 24, 
1844—and the first capital of Oregon. 

11.-Douglas Spruce, commonly called Douglas Fir, and com¬ 
mercially known as Oregon Pine. Taken from a plank sawed in 
the first saw-mill on the Pacific Coast, which was erected in 1827 
through the efforts of Dr. John McLoughlin, then Chief Factor 
of the Hudson’s Bay Company, at a point on the north bank of 
the Columbia river six miles east of the present city of Vancouver, 
Washington. 


12. -English Oak. Taken from the steamer Beaver, which 
left Gravesend, England, August 27, 1835, arrived at the Columbia 
river March 19, 1836, ^t the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort 
Vancouver, April 10, 1836, and was wrecked at Burrard’s Inlet, 
British Columbia, in June, 1888. She was the first steam vessel 
to enter the Pacific Ocean. 

13. -Dogwood. From a tree which grew near the site of the 
first saw-mill in the “Oregon Country.” (Referred to in No. 11.) 

14. -Oak, White. Sawed at the mill referred to in No. 11, 
and used in constructing the frame of the Mission Printing Press— 
the first in the “Oregon Country”—the iron-work of which was 
brought from the Sandwich Islands to Oregon in May, 1839—and 
first used near Lapwai, now in Idaho, on the 18th of that month, 
in printing translations of portions of the New Testament, hymns, 
leaflets, etc., into the Indian tongue, for use among the Indians. 

15. -Douglas Fir. From the cornice of the First Protestant 
Church (Methodist) built in American territory west of the Rocky 
Mountains, at Oregon City, Oregon, in 1843-44, with funds secured 
from citizens irrespective of church affiliations. 

16. -Spirea. Taken from a point near the site of the First 
Catholic Church in the “Oregon Country.” This was a log church 
built in 1836 near Champoeg, by the French Catholics, two years 
before there were any Catholic priests in this country. 

17. -Oregon Ash. This is the handle of the Gavel, and was 
taken from a rail split in the winter of 1847-48, by Ralph C. Geer, 
a pioneer of 1847, who came to Oregon from Knox county, Illinois, 
and settled in the Waldo Hills, Marion county. 

18. -Oregon Yew. This wood is used for one-third of the 
center of the Gavel, and grew near the site of Champoeg, Marion 
county, forty miles south of Portland, on the east bank of the 
Willamette river. (Not Wil-la-met-te, but Wil-lam'-ette ; not of 
French derivation, either, but a corruption of an Indian word, 
Willampth, meaning green water.) It was at this point that, on 
May 2, 1843, the first effort was made to organize American civil 
government on the Pacific Slope. There were present, pursuant 
to call to hear the report of a previously appointed committee, one 
hundred and two settlers. The report suggesting a form of organ¬ 
ization, was submitted, and, after considerable contention, adopted 
by a majority of two. This Oregon Yew was the principal wood 
used by the Indians in western Oregon for making bows prior to 
the advent of firearms. 


0 016 087 

19.-Royal Ann Cherry. The tree from vxxio piece oi 

wood was taken was one of seven hundred or eight hundred two- 
year-old fruit trees brought across the plains to Oregon in 1847 from 
Henry county, Iowa, by Henderson Luelling, known as the 
“ Traveling Nursery,” and planted five and a half miles south of 
Portland. This was the starting-point of the fruit industry of the 
Pacific Coast. This wood forms two-thirds of the centre of the 
Gavel. 


20-Seedling Apple. Taken from a tree which grew near the 
Hudson’s Bay Co. Fort Vancouver, now Vancouver, Washington, 
from seed brought to that place from London in 1825. Mrs. 
Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, one of the first two white women to 
cross the plains from “The States” to Oregon, arriving at Fort 
Vancouver on Sept. 12, 1836, made the following entry, in her 
diary under that date: “What a delightful place this is; what a 
contrast to the rough, barren sand plains through which we have 
so recently passed. Here we find fruit of every description— 
apples, peaches, grapes, pears, plums and fig trees in abundance; 
also, cucumbers, melons, beans, peas, beets, cabbage, tomatoes, 
and every kind of vegetable, too numerous to be mentioned. 
Every part is very neatly and tastefully arranged, with fine walks, 
lined on each side with strawberry vines. At the opposite end of 
the garden is a good house covered with grape vines. Here I 
must mention the origin of these grapes and apples. A gentleman, 
twelve years ago, while at a party in London, put the seeds of the 
grapes and apples which he ate, into his vest pocket; soon after¬ 
wards he took a voyage to this country and left them here, and 
now they are greatly multiplied.” 


21.-Service-berry. From the farm of Ewing Young, who 
came to Oregon in November, 1834, and settled in Che-ha-lem 
valley, about twenty-two miles a little west of south from Port¬ 
land. Young was the first American settler in Oregon west of the 
Willamette river. 


22. -Oak, White. From the spoke of a wagon-wheel forming a 
part of a wagon built in Indiana in 1842, and used by Abijah 
Hendricks in crossing the plains to Oregon in 1843. That was the 
first year that wagons were brought across the plains from the 
Missouri to the Columbia river. 

23. -Japanese Mahogany. To suggest one of the countries 
which face the United States on the west. 










